Suits & Sentences  feels a melancholic tang when learning of young cadets and midshipmen being ejected from the nation's military academies. There's something...sad...about a person of proven Eagle Scout-ian promise and commitment losing their place and being, in a sense, permanently branded. How does one get past all that?

So: Michael K. Stainback.

In April 2004, just a few months before he was scheduled to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy and earn his commission as an ensign, Stainback was terminated. Kicked out, in other words, only three tests short of graduation and after having endured nearly four years of military discipline. And, under the terms of the deal all midshipmen agree to, he was required to pay back the cost of his education. That's more than $120,000.

An Academic Board had determined that Stainback "possessed insufficient aptitude to become a commissioned officer in the naval service." And, in fact, the Academy had tried to bring Stainback up to speed, without apparent success.

Stainback sued, represented by well-known military law attorney Eugene Fidell and Matthew S. Freedus. He claimed the Academic Board was administratively infirm; mainly, it seems, Stainback is seeking relief from the requirement to pay back his education bill.

In a mid-course ruling late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton put off until another day the reimbursement question but sided with Stainback in determining there were "procedural errors" that need to be reviewed further. Specifically, the Academy's dean of admissions was absent from a hearing he was supposed to have attended, and there was an apparent absence of factual findings to support Stainback's termination. The judge thus rejected the government's bid for summary judgment.